Scientists just filmed the goblin shark, a 125-million-year-old "living fossil," alive in the deep Pacific for the first time, expanding what we know about one of the ocean's rarest predators

A shark that has been hiding from us for roughly 125 million years just got caught on camera, and for once, it swam away unharmed.

For over a century, the only time anyone got a real look at a living goblin shark was after it was hooked, dragged to the surface, and was probably minutes from death. But that changed when a team of marine biologists caught two goblin sharks swimming free in their own deep-sea environment, according to a new study published in the Journal of Fish Biology. It is the first time this elusive species has been documented alive and undisturbed in the wild.

A shark older than the dinosaurs finally shows its face
The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is frequently referred to as a “living fossil.” According to the study, it’s the last remaining member of a shark family that’s been around for around 125 million years, older than most dinosaurs you learn about in school. Its trademark is a long, blade-like snout packed with sensors that sense faint electrical signals of prey, and jaws that shoot forward like a slingshot to catch a meal. A 2016 study in Scientific Reports found that the bite can launch forward at more than 3 meters per second, making it one of the fastest feeding strikes ever recorded in a fish.


Despite that wild biology, little was known about the actual behavior of goblin sharks, simply because no one had ever seen one in its natural setting. Even as goblin sharks continue to appear in sporadic catches around the world, leading researchers to believe the species is distributed throughout much of the planet’s oceans, the actual confirmed specimen record is thin and patchy, according to the study.

Two sightings, five years apart, on opposite sides of the Pacific
The breakthrough was the result of two separate expeditions. It was first recorded in July 2019 near an unnamed seamount close to Jarvis Island, a remote location in the South Central Pacific. A male goblin shark, which was measured at more than 11 feet long and possibly more than 51 years old, was filmed swimming at a depth of about 4,058 feet, according to the study.

A second and more dramatic encounter occurred in August 2024 along the northern slope of the Tonga Trench in the South-west Pacific. The study found that a baited camera filmed a likely female goblin shark swimming at nearly 6,550 feet, nearly 2,300 feet deeper than any goblin shark had been recorded before.

"I never thought we'd see one alive," said study co-author Alan Jamieson, director of the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Center, in a statement, calling it one of the ocean's most striking deep-sea animals.

Why 20 seconds of footage means so much
According to Jamieson, for that expedition, the team filmed over 50 days of continuous footage at depths ranging from about 2,600 to 35,400 feet. Of all that footage, the goblin shark was seen on camera for just over 20 seconds, a window he described as proof of just how elusive the species really is, and how rare it was to get two confirmed sightings in a single study.

A much bigger map for one of the ocean's strangest predators
Before these sightings, goblin sharks were only known to be found in isolated pockets of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and in small sections off the western United States, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan, according to the study. These two new sightings push the known range of the species deep into the Central Pacific, supporting the idea that goblin sharks may be far more widespread than the current records show.

That counts for more than curiosity. The IUCN Red List currently lists the goblin shark as ‘Least Concern,’ but this status is largely based on the availability of population data. A wider confirmed range could eventually change the way individual countries weigh the species in their own conservation planning.

Knowing that its range is broader means the goblin shark can now be included in regional management plans and national biodiversity records, according to the study's lead author, Aaron Judah, a doctoral student in biological oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He said findings like this are a reminder of how little we know about the deep ocean.

That’s a huge change for a species that has been stealthily avoiding cameras since it was discovered in 1898. The deep ocean still holds many secrets, and some of them we have been swimming by for years, waiting for the right depth, the right bait, and the right 20 seconds to finally get noticed.